It Never Entered My Mind
by Katharine Frost
Summary: Faye brings herself to be able to comfort after a tragedy. Tiny little Jet and Faye friendship fic, definitely carries a spoiler warning.


Cowboy Bebop is a recent addiction of mine, and, even without reading any fan fiction on it, I became a staunch fan of Jet and Faye together. I just loved the way they played off of each other. So I was a little surprised to come here and find such a wealth of Spike/Faye stuff and very little Jet/Faye. I read Now With More Fiber's stuff and that's just about all I could find (it was quite good, incidentally, and if anyone has any recommendations for me I would very much like them).

Ah well – here's my teeny and mostly friendship-ish story. I hope you enjoy it, even though it's apparently an unusual couple. The title of this story is paying a bit of lip service to the series itself, with respect to its jazz fixation, as it is the name of a song performed by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Standard disclaimers apply.

**It Never Entered My Mind**

By Katharine Frost****

*****

So yeah. Everything falls apart at one point or another. Everything comes to an end. I don't expect Jet to let me stay around for long, not now. He can't even tolerate me.

Spike is an idiot, a fucking idiot, who went and got himself killed over some dumb broad. It's pretty storybook if you ask me. Killing his enemy, then dying himself. All that redemptive death crap that happens in cheap books and bad TV shows. Then falling down in the middle of a stairway, surrounded by ridges and ridges of concrete. A very public and important death, as deaths go. It's his fault. I told him not to go. I shot at him, even, and he just mumbled something about cats. Which is garbage if you ask me. Spike hates cats.

It was Jet who found him first. We were in the Bebop, and we were just going to leave Spike behind – it was his own damn fault anyhow – but Jet had to be all father-like and he went to find him. I knew he would. Jet would never say it, but Spike was like his son. He talked all this stuff about how Spike was a fool, and how he wouldn't be able to come back, but of course I could always see right through that. Spike was Spike. He was a fool, and Jet still loved him, in spite of it. Maybe even because of it.

I know I did.

I didn't get to see Spike on the stairway. Jet told me after he came back that first time on Mars. But there's a picture in my mind, and I think it's fairly accurate, of Spike sprawled out and bleeding, but peaceful. I wonder if he is feeling peaceful right now. But that's stupid. Of course he's not feeling peaceful – he isn't feeling anything. I don't believe in God or heaven and I am certainly not going to start now.

And presently I'm sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. Knees drawn up with my head on my chin. Jet's gone to make arrangements for Spike's body. He's going to be buried with Julia, I suppose. Spike would have liked that. He loved her, not me, which makes sense, because men don't love women like me. They stare at me and are more than willing to screw me but they don't love me. I'm not all sweet and innocent and wilting. The fact that I can shoot any man's brains out from a mile away is kind of a detracting factor when it comes to relationships.

I'm being a total snit right now. Spike is dead and I'm here whining to myself about how I don't have a man. Maybe Spike and Jet were always right. Maybe I am a selfish bitch. I always say to myself that it's because of who I am, what I am, but that's not true. Being frozen up didn't make me who I am. Neither did the doctor and his bloody medical bills. Not even Whitney made me a bitch with his smooth lies and his huge debts. I did it all.

There is a sound behind me, and I turn to see Jet coming into the room. Returned from Mars already. It is not until he's there when I realize just how quiet it has been. Ed and Ein were gone first, and though I'd never say it aloud I sort of miss the little buggers, and now Spike. Leaving Jet and I, and Jet despises me.

He comes and sit across from her, bent over a bit so he's on my eye-level. "So I guess you'll be leaving," he says shortly.

"No…" Fuck, I feel like crying, which is just absolutely shameful because Faye Valentine most certainly does not cry. She kills men and she gambles like crazy, but she does not shed a tear. "No, not yet."

A bit of a surprised look on his face, but it's gone before I can make a snide comment about it. "Why not?"

I have nowhere else to go. "Er – I want to see Spike's grave, once they're all finished." It's not a lie, I do want to see it. "I'm not completely fucking heartless, you know."

"I never said you were."

And he leaves. Just like that. Up the stairs, out of sight. Probably off to tend to his damn plants. I know he thinks I'm annoying and bitchy and all that, but at least I can say more than a goddamn bonsai tree.

Somehow, that's the last of my inner barriers broken. Jet walking away. We're both grieving and I'm not even valuable enough to stay by. I start to cry, then wail, in high, reedy sobs. I suddenly don't care if he hears me. I would be embarrassed if either Spike or Ed heard me, but they're both gone, they're gone, and I have Jet Black the bastard to stay with. The sound of my weeping echoes in the lounge room, resonant and unnatural.

Spike – Spike, Spike, Spike. I am a fool. We both are. It's stupid to think I loved him, after all that garbage with Whitney and with all the men after, but I did. I think I loved him because he never looked at me the way they did. Of course, he never really looked at me any other way, that was all for Julia, all for a fragment of a memory. I turn over and press my face into the soft worn fabric of the sofa, muffling my crying.

Then there's something on my shoulder, not comforting but cold. I tilt my head over, and there's Jet's cybernetic hand sitting there. He squeezes briefly, reassuringly, but I don't want the contact, not now. "Get away from me," I manage to gasp out. "Get the hell away from me, Black."

"Faye…"

His deep voice is confused. He obviously does not know how to deal with a crying woman. I mean, it takes only elementary knowledge to realize that he shouldn't use his creepy hand for comfort. Spike told me a few things in confidence about his woman on Ganymede. Alisa. Seems she left him just because of who he was, controlling and always right and all that. I can't say I blame her.

"Jet, please leave me be." Maybe being polite will get rid of him. "There isn't anything you can do to help. Just go."

He removes his inhuman hand, lifting it lightly. "Fine," he grunts. There is a minute of strained silence and then he opens his mouth again. "I'll be over watering my plants." And he leaves for his little green sanctuary a second time.

I've stopped crying, for the most part. I get up and go to my little cramped-up room. I suddenly don't feel much like wearing my yellow clothes anymore – what are they without Spike to look at them? – so I peel them off and leave them on the floor and put on some old pants and a tattered shirt and my white bathrobe. On my way out I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like hell. Which is not much of surprise, considering I didn't sleep last night because I was wondering where Spike was. I remember Vicious very well, even though I only met him briefly. You don't forget a face like that, and it's pretty damn sad that his was the last face Spike ever got to see. 

Or maybe he saw Julia's behind his eyelids.

Oh, shut up. Really, I hate thinking this way. It does not become me. Self-pity is pathetic, I've said it to myself a million times. And I've been through this train of thought before. It's just that right now my mind seems to want to go around in circles.

On the way out, passing by in the corridor, I see Jet with his plants. I hide a bit behind the doorframe and watch. He's bloody talking to them. I can't really hear what's he saying, it's too low and too rumbly, but there's this edge to his voice and … well, fuck, I don't know. It doesn't seem right. His face is all wrong, too. Usually he has this stupid put-on tough guy expression, but now it's just an ordinary face with ordinary features, twisted with grief and lack of comprehension. It seems more than a little profane to see Jet Black this way, so I step away quietly, so he won't hear me.

I go back out into our main room, back onto the yellow couch. I have no reason to do it, really, except that there's nothing for me do but to move from place to place and not particulary do anything as I do it. People always say you get numb with grief, and I never understood it until now.

There's the noise of moving feet, again, and Jet comes back in and sees me. He looks at my clothes, bottom to top, and this odd sort of disturbed expression comes over his face. It's ludicrous. He looks like he's about to start crying, which is even sillier than me crying. Jet Black cries, might as well start snowing in Hell. "What, Jet?"

"Could you please just be the ordinary Faye?" His voice is unusual, breathy. "Wear your damn impractical skimpy clothes and mouth off to me and eat what's not yours and leave and come back whenever you damn well please – I don't know, steal some money from me or something? Could you just…" He stops, stammering, and suddenly he _is _crying, goddammit all to hell, Jet Black – Jet Black! – is crying right in front of me.

"Hey." I walk over to him. "Hey!" Shit. I'm even worse at this than he is.

He just ignores me and keeps on crying and for a minute I'm tempted to just walk away and leave him because I'm sure this is just as embarrassing for him as it is for me. But I don't want to be heartless Faye Valentine anymore. I don't want to be all those things that expects of me. And – and as much as it's stupid, Jet Black is my friend.

So I curl out my arms and put a hand on each of his shoulders. One hand on flesh, the other touching metal. "Fuck, Jet," I say. "He wouldn't want you to cry and all that." Which is the most hypocritical thing in the world for me to say because I've been moping all this time.

"How do you know?" A ragged gasp. His eyes are closed, and I'm thankful for that because I don't think either of us wants to look the other in the eye. I draw his head down to my shoulder, completely aware of how bizarre the situation is. My hair is mopping over his face but he doesn't seem to mind.

"Well … ah … think of it this way," I say carefully. "He's probably in a much better place. I mean, Spike believed in some weird shit. He thought that people were reincarnated. He's probably off being a strange creature right now."

I can tell from the way he flinches that it was the wrong thing to say. "But you don't think that," he retorts.

Well… "No. Not really. Maybe. I don't know. I think I'll be in for a big surprise whenever I die."

He chuckles a bit a that, and hugs me tighter. A big bear hug. I can feel him studying me, watching my face, but I don't look up at him. "Lots of surprises today. Sure you never were a white cat, Faye?"

Huh? His voice is half-sorrowful, half-amused, and warm and lovely and curious and revelling in the beauty of a joke I don't get. "What?" I ask. I really have no idea what he's talking about. Must have been something between him and Spike.

"Nothing." And he wipes his tears away.

*

**END**


End file.
